Highlighting?

[Adrian MalSeraph]

What specific techniques could the painting guru's give to a beginner painter to have a decent hightlighting for armour? Especially dark Armour, such as Dark Angels Green (Space Marines) and Chaos Black (Eldar)

I've tried drybrushing, and it works, but only marginally. Any tips, hints, tricks?

[DEADMARSH]

For what it's worth, I read and read on the subject and never could do it right with my marines.

I stopped trying there for awhile, but when I started painting my guard army I decided to try it again. (Figures I'd get it right with my guard army; I'll only have to do it about 200 friggin' times now).

After about 10 tries, I finally got it.

What I do is start off with a base coat that is a shade darker than what I really want to model to end up looking like. Then apply the color you want as your base color, but keep out of the cracks, folds in robes, undersides of arms and legs, etc. Then go a shade lighter for things like the tops of shoulders, the top crease in robes or sleeves, and helmets. I don't use GW paints, so when I say I'm going a shade darker, I mix in a little black to my main color, and to go lighter, I add in some white or if the color happens to be red, I added in orange so it wouldn't look pink.

I guess my advice is sit down with some models and keep practicing until it finally looks "right" to you. Took me awhile to get drybrushing right too, and finally I just sat down and screwed up about five times then figured it out.

Just free up some time some Saturday, mix up some different shades of the paints you want to use, and pick up some Castrol Super Clean so you can strip the "mistake" models. Paint four or five models in a row trying something a little different on each one and you'll get it eventually.

[Cheredanine]

Right mate, there are varriants on dry brushing such as dry brushing white on blank then applying the colour using a lot of thin colour washes, however really the next texchnique to master is dry blending or layering

This is used by most of the painters on this board, Gareth, myself, I suspect slorak, articifer, minus-t for example, althogh I think kuffey uses crayons

There are many tutorials I know I have told varrious people how to do this, ususally I attach a file to the answer with a graphics example

The trick to it is patience, care and lots and lots of thin coats

try a search, if you dont find anything and there is nothing in the stickies, give me a shout

[minus_t]

Extreme highlights work quite well with dark colours.
To do these, take a medium-dark version of your base colour (eg: a darkish medium green), and water it down a little. Take a small-ish brush (size 1 or 0, or a GW detail brush), and get some of the paint on it. Using the edge of the brush (not the tip), apply paint to any hard edge on your mini.
Then, repeat the process with a lighter colour, but only add the highlights at the very extreme points and edges (or, if you're feeling fancy, where you think light would hit the edge).

This is relatively fast, quite simple, and looks pretty good with dark colours (it's how Heavy Metal did the Black Templar models for example).

Enjoy, and good luck!

-t.

[Adrian MalSeraph]

Thanks for all the help and quick replies.

I'm gonna give it a shot on some minis, and I'll put some pics up to see how it comes out.

@Cheredanine:

What exactly is dry-blending? This is the first I've heard of it...

[Zentradi]

One important thing is not to use a color that is to far away from the original base color (assuming that you are using the technique minus_t is talking about) this is the first step. Later you can try to use more then one shade for the highlights.

[minus_t]

Dry blending is also called layering.
Basicaly, you mix up a colour that is slightly lighter than the colour you are highlighting, and (generally, but not always) apply it to the raised areas of the mini.
Then, mix another colour, that is slightly lighter than the previous one, and repeat, leaving some of the previous colour showing.

This process is repeated until you end up with a very light shade (depending on the effect you want, which can be influenced by the material etc etc), so it looks like a smooth colour transition.
Very natural etc.

If you do a search for 'layering' you'll probably get a better guide than this one though 0_o

-t.

[Adrian MalSeraph]

Originally Posted by minus_t

Dry blending is also called layering.
Basicaly, you mix up a colour that is slightly lighter than the colour you are highlighting, and (generally, but not always) apply it to the raised areas of the mini.
Then, mix another colour, that is slightly lighter than the previous one, and repeat, leaving some of the previous colour showing.

This process is repeated until you end up with a very light shade (depending on the effect you want, which can be influenced by the material etc etc), so it looks like a smooth colour transition.
Very natural etc.

If you do a search for 'layering' you'll probably get a better guide than this one though 0_o

-t.

That's what I do for my Dark Angels.

I start with a basecoat of Black Spray.

Then I put a layer of Dark Angels Green on.

Then I add a layer of 1 Snot Green: 1 Dark Angels Green. Drybrushed.

I add another part of Snot Green and lightly dry brush that.

Another part Snot Green, and very lightly drybrush.

Finally, a very, very light dry brush of 1:1 Scorpion Green and Snot Green as the final layer.

That's my order.

Suggestions?

[Cheredanine]

Dont dry brush the layers, paint them with thined paint, covering less and less area each time, but lots of layers, see may avatar? the blue has about 30 layers on it

[minus_t]

Well, other than what Chere says (definatley don't *drybrush*), I think the layers you're looking at are possibly a bit light (from memory), they will probably look a bit out of place on the dark armour.
However, the only way to know for sure is to go for it, and try it out on a spare mini.

As you're pretty new to this stuff, I'd say maybe try 2 or 3 different techniques on different areas of the same mini, and see which on you like best, then try a whole mini with that technique and see how it looks.

-t.